Caillou and the New Neighbor
by lilpurplebird
Summary: Caillou makes a new friend. Or not.


I was bored and seeing all of these _Caillou_ fics made me want to join the bandwagon. I'm not cut out for this. I tried.

* * *

A new family moved into the neighborhood one day while Caillou and Rosie were playing in the front yard. They weren't allowed to run into the street for a better look, so they resorted to standing in the driveway staring at a moving truck that was blocking their view of the front house. They couldn't see who the new neighbors were, but they could clearly hear a gruff voice shouting everything he was saying.

"Wow! This new neighborhood! I can't _wait_ to make new friends!"

"My ears are hurting," Caillou whined to his sister, rubbing at one of the orifices like it was going to clear it away.

"Someone mad," Rosie mumbled, misinterpreting the voice.

Their mother came out of the house to see what the commotion was. "Oh, did they finally sell that house?" she noted matter-of-factly, slightly out of breath. She had been tired all day, and she didn't feel like using the fitness machine in the corner outside of hanging laundry on it.

"Someone's not using their indoor voice," the boy pointed out, still flinching from the auditory grating.

"Well come inside and eat some lunch. We'll go meet the new neighbors later."

Even while in the kitchen snacking on sandwiches, Caillou could still hear the voice yelling everything he was saying.

"I sure hope there's no _bullies_ around!" was the more recent phrase that did nothing but disturb the peace.

"What's a 'bully'?" he asked, still making a face.

"A bully is someone who is mean and pushes you around, and sometimes makes fun of you so you cry," his mother answered, nursing her third cup of coffee that day.

"Like you and Daddy?"

"No, there's a difference between being a parent, and being a bully," she corrected, trying to cover up the harshness in her tone.

"I hope to make _new friends_ today!" The voice was closer now, almost like it was right outside the window.

Rosie began to cry because her ears were hurting, but she couldn't properly convey it into words. Caillou became angry. "That yelling guy's making Rosie cry!" he huffed, kicking his legs under the table. "He needs to shut up!"

"Caillou, we don't use that language," his mother scolded him, though she was a little annoyed by it as well. The doorbell then rang. "Can you get the door for me, please?"

Taking his sandwich with him, Caillou stamped for the door, and pulled it open. His tiny eyes then became wider than ever before as he gasped very loudly and dropped his food at his feet.

The large, orange cat wearing khaki shorts and a blue shirt with words on it that read in giant letters "COOL CAT" stared blankly down at him as he waved. "Hi there!" he shouted, his mouth scarcely even moving. "My name's Cool Cat! I just moved down the street!" He then put his large mitts up to his face to show he was happy. "You're a kid, too! I love _all_ kids! Let's be friends!"

Caillou then let out a scream, slammed the door, and ran up to his room without hearing his mother yelling at him for being rude. He hid under his covers shaking and sobbing, his Rexy doll hugged tightly to his body as he tried to push back the awful memory of a giant, naked orange striped cat with the same blank stare waving at him as his father led him over.

"He found me!" he wailed, thrashing in his bed. "He found my house, and wants to eat me!"

" _Eat_ you? I don't want to eat you! Eating other kids is _not_ cool!"

He _knew_ his parents wanted to feed him to the giant cats! How _dare_ his mother let him into his room knowing he hated giant orange cats! He should have seen the signs.

When the covers were pulled back and the feline spread his arms out, Caillou, with all the strength of a four-year-old kid on a sugarhigh at a haunted house on Halloween, smacked him around with Rexy as the bludgeoning weapon. "Ow, ow! Why are you being a bully?! Daddy Derek didn't say _anything_ about bullies in the neighborhood!"

But Caillou wasn't listening as he drove the cat to its knees, primeval screams ripping out of his throat as he attempted to beat the cat to a pulp. He would have succeeded, too, had his mother not stormed into the room and pulled him away. Whatever happened next was nothing but a blur. Anything she and later his father told him went in one ear and out the other as the thoughts of chasing away his life-long fear clouded his mind while he pouted in his room with a sore bottom.

Although he was grounded, Caillou was at least glad to know that even though they still saw each other from across the street, the new orange "kid" learned his lesson and stayed away from his house from then on. He wasn't sorry. Except he couldn't help wondering who this "Butch the Bully Two" was.


End file.
